RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Obama’s Big Spending Numbers

Spending Your Money Like There Is No Tomorrow

Heritage’s Brian Riedl crunches some of the still-staggering numbers on the Democrats’ spending spree, including the fact that the projected 2009 budget deficit is larger than the Bush budget deficits for FY 2002-2007 (the six years when Bush had a Republican Congress to work with) combined. A worthwhile fact to recall when dealing with liberals who cannot comprehend how one could be more concerned about Obama’s deficits than Bush’s (of course, as always my concern is with spending, not deficits – deficits are just a symptom of overspending – but even then, Reidl’s point that 43 cents of every federal dollar spent at present is deficit spending is pushing into worrisome territory, especially with important sources of funding drying up).

This year, President Obama will spend a peacetime-record 26 percent of GDP….The 22 percent spending increase projected for 2009 represents the largest government expansion since the 1952 height of the Korean War (adjusted for inflation).

He also walks through the usual budget gimmickry, like how 75% of Obama’s projected budget “savings” are from not having another surge in Iraq each year, which was never anybody’s plan (note that these are budget numbers that don’t include the cost of the health care plan, either). Digest this, as you consider how many of Obama’s massive spending plans haven’t even been passed yet:

Federal spending per household (adjusted for inflation) remained constant at $21,000 throughout the 1980s and 1990s, before President Bush hiked it to $25,000. In 2009, Washington will spend $30,958 per household — the highest level in American history — and under President Obama’s budget, the figure will rise above $33,000 by 2019.